Ed Koch's new burial plot ensures he'll spend eternity in Manhattan

During his three terms as mayor, Ed Koch was known for asking just about everyone, "How am I doing?" For his tombstone, though, he's chosen something more reverential.

Even though the 83-year-old New Yorker says he's in good health, he confirmed Tuesday that he has purchased a burial plot for $20,000 in a cemetery in northern Manhattan.

"I don't want to leave Manhattan, even when I'm gone," Koch told The Associated Press. "This is my home. The thought of having to go to New Jersey was so distressing to me."

The nondenominational Trinity Church Cemetery sits on one of the higher points on the island and is the only active graveyard in Manhattan accepting new burials.

Koch said he was thrilled to learn from a former aide now working for Trinity that the church permits Jews to be buried there and still had space.

Koch, who saw the city through some of its tougher years as mayor from 1978 to 1989, has had some health problems recently, related to a common spinal condition, but he said he's doing fine and isn't planning on needing his new piece of real estate anytime soon.

He said, though, that he is at an age when he's reflecting more on his life and his place in history.

For the inscription on his memorial stone, the gregarious, glad-handing former mayor passed up the phrase most associated with him for something more traditional.

The marker will bear the Star of David and a Hebrew prayer, "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One." It also will be inscribed with the last words of journalist Daniel Pearl before he was murdered by terrorists in 2002: "My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish. I am Jewish."

Koch explained that he had been moved that Pearl chose to affirm his faith and heritage in his last moments.